In motorized lawn mowers of the type in which a whirling blade moving in a plane parallel to the ground is used to cut the grass, the cut grass and incidental debris such as pieces of sticks or stones are in effect sucked up by the whirling blade and discharged through a discharge opening to the exterior. When it is desired to collect the cuttings and debris, a collector such as a fabric bag or the like is commonly secured to the discharge opening of the discharge chute, so that the grass and debris enter the mouth of the collector and are collected for subsequent disposal by removing and emptying the bag from time to time.
Particularly in the case in which the collector is positioned behind the motor and blade so that the discharge chute is directed rearwardly toward the operator, if no precautions are taken dangerous high-velocity discharge of debris toward the operator can occur, with possible injury to him, if the mower motor is operated in the absence of the collector. When the collector is in place, this cannot occur since the collector intercepts and contains such flying debris before it can reach the operator. However, such injury can occur if the collector is intentionally or accidentally removed and the mower motor continues to operate.
To avoid such dangerous condition, a safety bar is often provided on the mower frame, adjacent the operator's main handle, which is spring-biased in a direction to shut off the motor automatically. The operator must hold the safety bar against the handle in order to use the mower, and as soon as he releases the safety bar, for example to remove the bag, the motor stops. However, with some constructions the bag may accidentally disconnect from the chute while the motor is running, or the operator may defeat the purpose of the safety bar by tying it to the main handle. For such reasons it is also common to provide a guard plate pivotably urged by spring tension and/or gravity into a closed position in which it extends across at least most of the discharge opening when the collector is absent, but is pivoted upwardly out of the way, to an open position, when the collector is in place.
A large variety of such apparatuses have been proposed. In some of them, a lever is manually actuated to pivot the guard plate out of the way before the collector is attached; in others, the pushing of the collector onto the chute mounting arrangement itself causes the guard plate to open, inside the collector.
While some of these arrangements have been useful for their intended purposes, they have generally been less than ideal in one or more respects. For example, they may be complex and difficult to operate, or unreliable in assuring that the guard plate will be in its closed position whenever the collector is disconnected, and in some cases they may not provide for clamping the mouth of the collector to the discharge chute as snugly and securely as is desired.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a new and useful structure for connecting a collector to the discharge chute of a lawn mower.
Another object is to provide such apparatus which assures that the guard plate will be in its closed position whenever the collector is disconnected from the discharge chute.
A further object is to provide such apparatus which also assures that the mouth of the collector will be snugly and stably coupled to the discharge opening of the discharge chute.
A still further object is to provide such apparatus which is relatively inexpensive and simple to make, as well as easy to use.